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Lumifer comments on Open Thread, December 2-8, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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An interesting factoid. Drawing implications is left as an exercise for the reader.
"...for two decades, all the Minuteman nuclear missiles in the US used the same eight-digit numeric passcode: 00000000. ... And while Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara directly oversaw the installation of PALs on the US-based ICBM arsenal, US Strategic Command generals almost immediately had the PAL codes all reset to 00000000 to ensure that the missiles were ready for use regardless of whether the president was available to give authorization." (source)
duplicate. I'm surprised I can only find this one.
The original source is Bruce Blair, 2004, who has made related complaints since 1977. Supposedly Eric Schlosser's book (2013) is an independent source. Luke quotes it at length here, but not about the zeros. The most common source is Steven Bellovin, who makes some historical remarks here more candidly than most accounts.